Fraysters react to the Downing Street memo.

Idées Fixes

Fraysters react to the Downing Street memo.

In response to Fred Kaplan's war stories on the Downing Street memo, Montfort issues a lengthy rebuke for "glossing over the main accusation against Bush" through questionable semantic parsing:

Either way—"fixed" or "fixed around"—Bush and his aides had decided to let policy shape intelligence, not the other way around; they were explicitly politicizing intelligence.

But that doesn't necessarily mean they thought their claims were false. ... They just knew Saddam had WMD, and if the facts didn't quite prove he did, they would underscore and embellish the tidbits that came close. ...

Does this distinction matter? If all you want to know is whether Bush was deceptive, no; he was deceptive. If you want to know how government works, how officials make bad mistakes, yes; it matters a lot.

See how Kaplan minimizes the crux of the issue? "If all you want to know is whether Bush was deceptive..." If all you want to know... The subtext: well shoot, is that all? Big whoop. Oh you simple little unsophisticated citizen. Look, we should be talking about more important things than whether he lied. Like, how government makes mistakes. So he lied (shrug). What else is new?

Being concerned about how government officials make bad mistakes is not the crux of the charge against Bush. The crux is what Kaplan euphemistically calls "deception" - i.e., lies. Bush had a policy of war against Iraq long before he implemented it, and he "fixed" the intelligence to support the policy. Kaplan understands this, but somehow he seems to think it doesn't really matter because Bush thought, wrongly, that Saddam had WMD.

So he couldn't prove it. So what. He thought the WMD were there. So he repeatedly and passionately told the American people what amounted to lies, and had his cabinet officials do the same. He enlisted the support of rightwing radio and TV talk show hosts, had an entire network at his disposal, sent his Secretary of State off to the UN to repeat the lies.

They were lies because they were not facts; the intelligence simply did not support his beliefs. So he fixed the intelligence to fit his beliefs. That's beyond mere deception because of the result: war.

Bush was in a state of cognitive dissonance - he lied to himself and lied to us - and in thrall of such willful delusion he led us into war and is directly responsible for the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of people, and made all of our citizens complicit in this mass murder.

I can't tell from all the hemming and hawing whether Kaplan thinks the memos say "anything new," which requisite the mainstream media pundits are using to judge the memos' worth - and many are saying there's nothing new (shrug), we've known all this for a long time (Kaplan reiterates this) and so ... so what?

The so what is that the American citizens did not know. That is Bush's great malfeasance, his crime. He lied, half of the nation believed him, and on this basis gave him permission to send 1,700 American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civilians to their deaths.

If he thought there were WMD and Saddam was an imminent threat, but he knew the intelligence didn't support his belief, he had the solemn duty to inform the citizens of this. He would have had to say, "Look, I think he has WMD. Yes, I know the facts we have don't back me up, but I'm really really sure of it anyway." Do you think that Congress or the media would so readily have followed him into war?

That is what's new, Mr. Kaplan. That "deception" is an impeachable offense.

I am furious that the first article (I think) Slate publishes that really takes a hard look at the Downing Street memo simply reinforces the media's reluctance to have a backbone about this issue. Kaplan writes, "Many critics see the memo as the ultimate proof of Bush's duplicity—and, given that no U.S. newspaper picked up the story for two weeks (and then buried it deep inside), as further evidence of the mainstream media's cravenness." Kaplan does nothing to change this fact. In the face of a smoking gun (some politicians are calling for impeachment), Kaplan makes excuse after excuse for Bush and Blair. Poor guys, he says, "they seemed to believe in their product at the time," even while admitting weak evidence and ulterior motives. Is this the standard we want for going to war? And why should the media make excuses and explanations for Bush when he has essentially refused to do so for himself?

As a Bush supporter, my belief has always been about what Kaplan assumes here:

1) Bush assumed, by early 2002, that war with Iraq was inevitable, or almost inevitable;

2) Bush, Blair, and everyone else with access to intel believed that Saddam had WMD;

3) Bush agreed, for diplomatic reasons (largely to pick up Britain and the possibility of other coalition members), to give Saddam "one last chance" to cooperate fully with inspections.

Given that, I have a hard time seeing the President's comments about his intention to go to war as a lie. Yes, Bush said that he hoped war wouldn't become necessary, but that doesn't strike me as a lie, just diplomacy.

As an example of Bush's public comments, see his October 16, 2002 comments on signing the use of force resolution. Some highlights:

- In an unfortunate choice, the White House Staff have titled the page: "Iraq: Denial and Deception." They are obviously referring to Saddam, but still, I wish I was a lefty, so that I could make more fun of it.

Bush's key comments that conflict with his supposed intent to go to war include:

- "I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary."

- "On the commands of a dictator, the [Iraqi] regime is armed with biological and chemical weapons, possesses ballistic missiles, promotes international terror and seeks nuclear weapons."

- "Iraq's combination of weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorist groups and ballistic missiles would threaten the peace and security of many nations."

- "Our goal is to fully and finally remove a real threat to world peace and to America. Hopefully this can be done peacefully. Hopefully we can do this without any military action."

- "If we go into battle, as a last resort, we will confront an enemy capable of irrational miscalculations, capable of terrible deeds. As the Commander-in-Chief, I know the risks to our country. I'm fully responsible to the young men and women in uniform who may face these risks."

The bottom line is that, while I'm sure a lefty could make hay with this thing, Bush's comments strike me as fundamentally true. I'm sure that he "hoped" that Saddam would comply with his demands without war. I'm also sure that Bush didn't believe that Saddam would, and therefore assumed that war was almost certainly necessary.

The Downing Street Memo supports this idea, but since it's what I already believed, I can't see it as a revelation.

awestruck2 questions here whether, in exonerating Bush from the charge of deception, sincerity of belief should trump absence of evidence.

In the Downey St. Memo..the serious 'bone of contentions' circles around the 'intellegence' around regime change and WDM's being 'fixed'. The assumption is this refer's to definition #7, which is the decidedly American definition/terminology for 'fixed'. However, this is a British memo, thinking and terminology, my guess is a combination of #1,#2 is #5a, although with BUsh and his Vulcans...#5b is entirely possible...this could refer to a combination of these three, I think it is highly unlikely that the Brit was referring to #7 since [this is a] rather unique American concept.

fixed (fkst)

adj.

1. Firmly in position; stationary.

2. Determined; established; set: at a fixed time; a fixed price.

3. Not subject to change or variation; constant: pensioners on a fixed income.

Emily Bazelon's analysis of the prosecution in the Michael Jackson case, coupled with Jacob Weisberg's reflection on the childhood origins of the pop star's condition, yielded numerous plaints on the Fray about justice-for-sale, opportunistic gold-diggers, the nation's misplaced attention on sensationalistic news, and the media's alternate deification/toppling of celebrity figures.

The retrospective reflex to examine MJ's past behavior and statements as harbingers of his current situation proved especially strong, as did the coining of puns by fraysters and journalists alike referring to his "moonwalking away" or ability to "just beat it."

jane2notes that what MJ may or may not have done to others he has been doing to himself for years, as the "first entertainer to publicly fondle his own genitals while performing his compellingly staged dance routines."

Combining a sense of outrage with a general lack of surprise, Wolfmaiden's reaction to the verdict invokes yet another prior instance of MJ's apparent mental instability:

This man has been sick in the head for a long time. What parent dangles his child over a balcony. I mean come on. He is a threat to his own children. He thinks he is Peter Pan. That is so ridiculous. The man is sick.

Thrasymachusgloats over his now-prophetic words about the jury outcome:

Personally, I predicted this exact result on December 30, 2003, in a post entitled (optimistically, as it turned out), "The Radioactive Issues of 2004."

So far I'm batting about .500 on those predictions, but this was the full text of my prediction, on 12/30/03, about the Jackson trial:

MICHAEL JACKSON BEATS IT

The rap, that is. Everyone will think he's guilty, but -presto!- he's going to walk. Charges of police evidence tampering and brutality (possibly true) will persuade a jury to acquit him and send him back to Neverland. That there will then be another charge of child molestation against Jackson is a tiresomely obvious prediction; but it won't be 2004. All we're going to see this year is the endless, and endlessly tedious trial. It won't be televised; courtroom sketch artists' attempts to assay Jackson's plastic features will form a mainstay of late-night comedy routines in the year ahead.

Much soul-searching about America's flawed judicial system and "malefactors of great wealth" lies in store for us. You are warned.

RoyJaruk-18concludes that the prosecution suffered from a lack of focus:

The prosecution didn't do all that great a job with the case as presented. Casting their charge net as widely as they did, I rather got the impression they were thinking if they scattergunned enough charges at Wacko Jacko, some of them would stick … It's far better to concentrate on ONE charge where you can present clear-cut evidence than it is to spray a bunch of charges at a defendant in the hope that the prosecution can convince the jury that there's more to them than just "He said/She said."

but notes that the real ramifications of the trial lie elsewhere:

The result will be that while the blindly fanatic supporters who love his work may turn out for him, there aren't enough of them to support his lifestyle. A personality in his business must appeal to a wider audience than just the dedicated fans; and after this, Michael Jackson has all the appeal of a gut-split skunk ripening on the highway. The not-guilty verdict of the court of law does not matter a damn in the court of public opinion. There, he has been tried and found guilty of the crime of deviance from the norm; and the penalty is career-death. If you think I'm kidding, just look back 80 years or so and examine the first so-called "trial of the century," the rape accusation leveled against the great comedian Fatty Arbuckle.

The rare compassionate response can be found here from Rainey, who aims his disgust at the "money hungry people that saw him as an opportunity to make their fortune."

Mirroring Weisberg's line of reasoning, SuperDuper delivers this defense:

As a society, most can't comprehend the idea that a grown man would choose to surround himself with children. If he does, then he must be a pedophile or be touching them inappropriately. Some how we're programmed to believe that if you're an adult, then you should spend your time with adults not children. If you choose kids, then you must be a weirdo. Michael Jackson isn't a normal guy. He's eccentric and strange. He's odd and has identity issues, but he's no pervert. He surrounds himself with kids because he's a kid himself. He had children so he could have friends. In his statement after the case, he says, "Children didn't let me down, adults did." That says it all.

But omnibus1readerobjects to the equation of childhood with a state of "innocence":

Michael Jackson is not J.M. Barrie. The present-day Americans are not Victorians, and are far more likely to have encountered explicit sexual materials, available constantly in the media. Being naive as a child is hardly an option for anyone nowadays, even a child. Certainly, given the admitted childhood of Michael, naivete was never an option. Recapturing innocence is impossible.

Also in disagreement with Weisberg is fozzy, who argues that MJ displays "a classic array of signs of pedophilia":

it can be precisely the asexual nature of childhood that attractst [sic] the pedophile. The pedophile, however, is an adult with sexual urges, so one question becomes: how long can they run from their adult selves?

As a final footnote, satish_desai provides a helpful clarification on the legal question of "admission of past evidence" in California courts.

Tucked away amidst all the Jackson reaction, be sure not to miss TheMaxFischerPlayers' snob test in BOTF. AC … 7:44a

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Fraywatch extends congratulations to Betty_the_Crow, TheBrewmeister, Publius_Too, and the rest of the contributors who are making BTC News one of our favorite sources for discussion in the blogosphere.

This week, Pub_Too offers an examination of the culture war, filtered through an "intriguing exchange" over at the American Prospect. After taking in both sides, Pub_Too concludes:

…The correct approach, I would argue, is to engage the culture debate, but to do so within a liberal framework. In other words, we should acknowledge that there are concerns about the entertainment culture, but that the root of this problem, which is how we are raising our kids. We have a general problem with child-care. The content of television programs is a minor issue; the fact that tv is raising our kids is a major one. This acknowledges the concern while placing it in a broader context. It also shifts the debate to an area amenable to policy-making.

In other words, the problem is not what's on the tube. The problem is that the tube has become too important…

Some highlights from inside the Fray City Limits:

I'd be interested to know what percentage of Americans think abortion should be legal for an 18-year-old girl whose boyfriend promised to love her forever but dropped her like a lead balloon as soon as he heard she was pregnant.

That would be the percentage who are willing to allow a woman to choose when to have an abortion, albeit with certain restrictions, rather than banning abortion in most cases and legislating a few exceptions.

…there has been a great deal of blather … over many years about the UN and "non-zero-sum" choices that come with a subtext that assumes there was a halcyon time when the US acted "multilaterally" in the blessed spirit of FDR, while it no longer does. This is simply not so. FDR conceived the UN as a vehicle to extend US power, not limit it. Wright and others see what they call multilateralism as a means to modify and curtail US action, not a vehicle to implement it by appealing to mutual interests and summoning alliances founded on those interests…

—Publius, here, asserting that the United Nations "was the creation of a comprehensive web of international institutions that would embody and give further impetus to post-war American leadership" across the globe.

…reading all these posts and replies on the costs of lower and higher income commercial sales of the world is depressing. It shows that everyone, at least in america, is willing to slander anyone who doesn't fit in their own community of income. You know, it's great that people with higher income can shop where they want, but it doesn't give them the right to downplay other hardworking people that don't happen to make the same amount of money. On the other hand, people with a lower income don't have the right to slander those with more money in their wallets…

—17-year-oldjadedcustomers, here, trying to make sense of class warfare and Wal-Mart on Moneybox Fray.

…As intended, "American Gothic" was a slightly smutty joke about a farmer's daughter, lame and tired and not very funny. But as a painting that has been completely misperceived by the public, it is a masterpiece of Americana, inspiring countless interpretations, all more interesting than the original.

Its immediate recognizability has a lot to do with the strength of its design. Not so much its full frontal stare, as Ms. Fineman suggests … but rather it's strong play of verticals and horizontals, combined with a lively use of pattern. The picture is strongly vertical, not just in the two standing figures, but in the slats of the house and barn, the piping on the farmers shirt, and the tines of his pitchfork, nicely counterbalanced by the perpendicular lines of the awning and the stairs and the windows cutting across the painting. The design of the woman's dress rhymes with the design of the drapes, creating a contrasting polka-dot pattern to the prevailing grid. The heads of the man and the woman are physically connected by the peak of the roof, balanced on either side of the picture like scales. The head of the man, especially, is wonderfully painted; the linear style that limited Wood's depiction of a young woman works well for the gaunt and wrinkled old man. It's a solidly crafted composition, and as such is instantly memorable…

…If anyone can explain why Americans have become so willing--almost universally--to conduct their lives only by grace and permission of a monumental central government authority, then IOZ is all ears. Frankly, the phony world-changing import of 9/11 is no proper answer. There has been some other fundamental shift in our collective psychology that seems to compel us to accept on the flimsiest tissue of an argument that our wasteful, venal, and corrupt government should be and must be the permission-giver for the most minute aspects of our lives.

I don't believe this is a result of our obscene and juvenile desire for universally assured safety.

The desire for safety is a symptom, not a cause. It's rooted in the faulty belief that this government or any government can keep you safe through the exercise of authority. It's rooted in the idea, pounded into our collective head for decades now, that the government can do it for you, and all you need to do in life is get a job and buy a lot of shit on credit. Whether that manifests as misplaced trust in economic authority or police authority or military authority, it's endemic across party lines and throughout the political spectrum. It's rooted in intellectual and personal laziness--the sort of laziness that allows so many, for instance, to support wars in which one is not fighting and would not fight oneself…

Another Late Night: There's a small but concentrated discussion in Music Box Fray about Jody Rosen's write-up on "chill", or down-tempo music. Gooner scoffs at Rosen's notion that, "In spirit and in fact, chillout was inseparable from the drugged-up culture of Ibiza's throbbing discothèques; it was recuperation music, music for the pause in the bacchanal":

Jody, I have to wonder about your social scene. Middle-aged people with mortgages?

In my extensive experience with wastrel hedonism, I've observed that the people driving the "chillout" scene by actually going to shows and spreading buzz through their offices and neighborhoods tend to be recreational cannabis users in their mid-twenties. They get a good laugh out of the white late boomers embarrassing themselves at Latin Jezz fests and dub reggae shows.

"Chillout" is not a reaction to house music. It's a style invented by DJs who know their audiences are high on weed and will appreciate repetitive, melodic tunes that will have the audience saying things like, "Hey, isn't that Cab Calloway he's remixing?"

Chill is used for music within a certain tempo. Songs in the genre are usually in the 85-95 beats per minute (BPM) range. Now, if you take a song from so-called "acid-jazz-- a staple of chill-- and increase its tempo twofold to about 180 BPM, you would have something that sounds like American bebop jazz. This isn't an accident; it's how the innovators of the style arrived at the new groove. Likewise, if you take "drum and bass" dance music and cut its tempo in half, you'll hear James Brown-style R&B breaks (drum fills at the ends of sections.) Once again, it's no accident.

The point is that electronic music can be wildly inventive, but it can also be a contrivance. Some producers today are substituting templates, such as chill, for the real raw material of this music-- soul. It's also no accident that the explosion in the popularity of chill came about in Europe, where there are plenty of great musicians, but they hear the raw material from a distance.

As chill stations pop up in every city, listeners can apply a simple test when they tune in: Does this groove cook?

still inclined to view the movement with a jaundiced eye, as I am anything that extracts the energy of a given form, perfects it to nonoriginality, then serves it to an unsuspecting audience who blindly accept it as new, therefore exciting.

It's as old as snake oil salesmen.

In response, Fray_Editor pipes in his musical sensibility here, while CaptainRonVoyagepoints out that "New York Chill" has a long-standing predecessor in Santa Monica.

Follow the Money: Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg examines United States' policy toward Cuba in The Big Idea and concludes that the president is "not serious at all" about promoting democracy 90 miles to the south. Weisberg touches on a bevy of issues, from the U.S. trade embargo to the community of Cuban political dissidents lobbying for political and economic reform. For Arkady, though, the reason the current administration (and presumably past ones) is slow to the punch is simple:

The last thing they'd want to do is end one of the most consistent sources of politically-profitable outrage, like Castro's regime. If you want to keep funds flowing into GOP coffers from wealthy Cuban exiles, and keep an ever-handy bloc of Cuban-American votes in the critical battleground state of Florida, why would you want to eliminate the wedge issue that has given you such successes over the years? Fidel Castro has long been one of the GOP's best fund-raisers and most tireless propagandists, so any policy that threatens him would be very bad news for Republicans. That's why we'll happily march our armies halfway around the world to get rid of Saddam, but wouldn't send them a few hundred miles off our coast to get rid of Castro.

Arkady expands his argument and looks at other instances of "intentional Republican failure," including abortion, in which the party is better served by inaction that stokes the flames of constituency outrage than coherent policy that could potentially damage Republicans in the center. ElizaA draws this parallel:

It's always reminded me of that classic comic strip "Peanuts."

Every fall, Lucy would say to Charlie Brown "I'll hold the football and your run up and kick it, Charlie Brown". And every year he would run up and just as he was about to make contact with the ball she would yank it away and he would fall flat on his ass. Every time.

Every fall on election day the Republicans hold the ball and the Evangelical Christians line up all outraged about their moral issues and vote for them. Then the next session of congress starts and what's the first thing on the agenda?

The Bankruptcy bill. They fall for it every time.

Valaderobelieves that our Castro policy isn't nearly so important as our post-Castro policy:

It'll take a brave politician to stand up to the Cuban lobby, but I'm sure it can be done if explained correctly. But the embargo is only part of the problem. The U.S. must have a coherent, far-sighted policy for when Fidel smokes his last cigar. That's the only way to ensure a peaceful, fair and enduring democratic transition in Cuba.

DeSotoinsists that, in Cuba, "Democratization, and along with it all the positives and negatives of corporate power e.g. freedom of the press and corruption, will be be convulsive and painful":

What is clear is that [the current Cuban regime] will not allow the sons of Cuban exiles to come to Cuba and take over. They will not let the Cuban Americans take over properties such as farms or houses and locals will not let the Miami guys take over political power. Not without a fight. And that fight might be a violent one. As the solidarity crumbles (as it does in any political movement), those hard core remaining in power will pull out all the stops.

Finally, gtompkins1explores the possibility of a post-Castro Cuba joining the Union…KA8:45 a.m.

Learning Deep Throat's identity is a bit like watching the Boston Red Sox win the World Series. Fleeting euphoria gives way to an anticlimactic hangover after you realize that all the intrigue has been extinguished. What's left?

Many fraysters aren't at ease endowing Felt with the hero label. For The_Bell, here, Mark Felt "is a complicated figure who strikes me as more Clark Kent than Superman – professional and competent but also a little cold and unlikable":

That Deep Throat would wind up being a highly placed official largely buried in bureaucratic anonymity is not especially surprising in retrospect. Anybody of true high profile would have been too easy to spot; too easy to connect with leaked information. Clark was well positioned within the Bureau to know where bodies were buried – he had buried more than a few himself – but his motivations to speak out about Watergate were a lot more complex than simple patriotism or personal integrity.

Why did Felt decide to turn on the Nixon administration?

Two likely reasons for Felt's motivation to help uncover the Watergate conspiracy are talked about extensively in most papers reporting his unmasking. Felt considered himself personally betrayed/slighted by Nixon after being passed over for the top job at the FBI when Hoover died. Moreover, Felt was appalled by the extent his usurper – Patrick Gray, a Nixon loyalist – was undermining the Bureau's independence/authority by his willingness to cooperate and share information with the Administration…

Felt did more regarding Watergate than a lot of other people who were equally positioned to know what he knew. He deserves our admiration and thanks for that. I just get the funny feeling that the more we learn about him and the more we pick at his brain, the more uncomfortable we will get with the man sitting upon the pedestal we have constructed for him. The sense of unease looking at the now-decrepit figure will not go away when we uncover more about what was really going on underneath his once dashing silver locks. After the initial excitement dies down that Clark Kent is really Superman, we are going to have to face the grim fact that Superman is really that prim little prick, Clark Kent.

He is a coward because, as Assistant Director of the FBI, he should have been openly arresting those who were guilty, or, if need be, he should have resigned his position and then told his story publicly. Instead, he hid in the dark and whispered.

He is a small man because he did what he did, not for the sake of justice or because of what was right, but because he was passed over for a promotion. As it turns out, he was much too small for the position he held, much less that of F.B.I. Director.

Richard Nixon forfeited his privilege to be our president by committing obstruction of justice. Mark Felt forfeited his privilege to be our hero for the reasons I have given.

Here, ShriekingViolet "suspect[s] that the historical consensus on Watergate will be rather different":

Woodward and Bernstein were good reporters. They performed a valuable public service by connecting the dots, using their sources wisely, uncovering a particularly brazen wrongdoing by the Nixon Administration, and providing the impetus for an official investigation that ultimately brought down Nixon. But in doing so, they used the only consistently available source of political information outside of the officially-dispensed, carefully-packaged spin and propaganda: a public official who is willing to anonymously bad-mouth another public official…

For every Daniel Ellsberg who blows the whistle in the public interest, and every Mark Felt who serves the public interest in addition to his own, there are a far greater number of leakers whose purpose is to harm a rival or mislead the public...

SV concludes that:

In the proper context, Watergate should not be seen as an example of how aggressive reporting serves the public interest. It should be seen as a sterling example of how aggressive reporting can serve the public interest if reporters are extremely cautious in their use of anonymous sources. Because Woodward and Bernstein didn't really bring down Nixon. Mark Felt and several White House sources did. The accuracy of the scoop and the good intentions of the leaker were little more than luck of the draw.